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Author: Thomas K. Lindsay
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195392111
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."--Thomas Jefferson From its very beginning, American government has been a continuously evolving and contentious enterprise defined by profound questions like "Who has the right to vote, on what, and why?" "Why does American democracy separate the powers of government?" and "What do our persistent debates over religion, citizenship, and law reveal about the nature of American democracy?" Addressing these and five other vital questions, Investigating American Democracy: Readings on Core Questions is ideal for a variety of courses in American politics. Each chapter opens with a core question that leads into readings reflecting conflicting views on that question. This "point-counterpoint" approach helps students to critically evaluate and compare the readings and to form their own opinions on each issue. Ranging from the founding of the country to the present day, the selections include writings and speeches from such illustrious historical figures as Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jane Addams, and Franklin D. Roosevelt alongside work from more contemporary political leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, John Ashcroft (Bush administration Patriot Act), and Barack Obama. Considerable sections of important Supreme Court opinions are also included. The editors provide "Guiding Questions" for each reading and extensive historical background for each chapter and reading. An Instructor's Manual containing test-bank questions is available to adopters.
Author: Thomas K. Lindsay
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195392111
Category : Democracy
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."--Thomas Jefferson From its very beginning, American government has been a continuously evolving and contentious enterprise defined by profound questions like "Who has the right to vote, on what, and why?" "Why does American democracy separate the powers of government?" and "What do our persistent debates over religion, citizenship, and law reveal about the nature of American democracy?" Addressing these and five other vital questions, Investigating American Democracy: Readings on Core Questions is ideal for a variety of courses in American politics. Each chapter opens with a core question that leads into readings reflecting conflicting views on that question. This "point-counterpoint" approach helps students to critically evaluate and compare the readings and to form their own opinions on each issue. Ranging from the founding of the country to the present day, the selections include writings and speeches from such illustrious historical figures as Thomas Jefferson, Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Jane Addams, and Franklin D. Roosevelt alongside work from more contemporary political leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, John Ashcroft (Bush administration Patriot Act), and Barack Obama. Considerable sections of important Supreme Court opinions are also included. The editors provide "Guiding Questions" for each reading and extensive historical background for each chapter and reading. An Instructor's Manual containing test-bank questions is available to adopters.
Author: Geneva Overholser
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195172833
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 503
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Book Description
American democracy is built on its institutions. The Congress, the presidency, and the judiciary, in particular, undergird the rights and responsibilities of every citizen. The free press, for example, protected by the First Amendment, allows for the dissent so necessary in a democracy. How has this institution changed since the nation's founding? And what can we, as leaders, policymakers, and citizens, do to keep it vital?The freedom of the press is an essential element of American democracy. With the guidance of editors Geneva Overholser and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, this volume examines the role of the press in a democracy, investigating alternative models used throughout world history to better understand how the American press has evolved into what it is today. The commission also examines ways to allow more voices to be heard and to improve the institution of the American free press.The Press, a collection of essays by the nation's leading journalism scholars and professionals, will examine the history, identity, roles, and future of the American press, with an emphasis on topics of concern to both practitioners and consumers of American media.
Author: James Laxer
Publisher: Groundwood Books Ltd
ISBN: 0888999127
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 146
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Book Description
An international manifesto on democracy traces its evolution and the ways in which women and minorities have historically fought to win democratic rights, in an account that describes successful implementations of democracy in formerly oppressed regions, clarifies common misconceptions, and warns of the dangers of widening economic gaps. Simultaneous.
Author: Tom Ginsburg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022656438X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 306
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Book Description
Democracies are in danger. Around the world, a rising wave of populist leaders threatens to erode the core structures of democratic self-rule. In the United States, the tenure of Donald Trump has seemed decisive turning point for many. What kind of president intimidates jurors, calls the news media the “enemy of the American people,” and seeks foreign assistance investigating domestic political rivals? Whatever one thinks of President Trump, many think the Constitution will safeguard us from lasting damage. But is that assumption justified? How to Save a Constitutional Democracy mounts an urgent argument that we can no longer afford to be complacent. Drawing on a rich array of other countries’ experiences with democratic backsliding, Tom Ginsburg and Aziz Z. Huq show how constitutional rules can both hinder and hasten the decline of democratic institutions. The checks and balances of the federal government, a robust civil society and media, and individual rights—such as those enshrined in the First Amendment—often fail as bulwarks against democratic decline. The sobering reality for the United States, Ginsburg and Huq contend, is that the Constitution’s design makes democratic erosion more, not less, likely. Its structural rigidity has had unforeseen consequence—leaving the presidency weakly regulated and empowering the Supreme Court conjure up doctrines that ultimately facilitate rather than inhibit rights violations. Even the bright spots in the Constitution—the First Amendment, for example—may have perverse consequences in the hands of a deft communicator who can degrade the public sphere by wielding hateful language banned in many other democracies. We—and the rest of the world—can do better. The authors conclude by laying out practical steps for how laws and constitutional design can play a more positive role in managing the risk of democratic decline.
Author: Douglas L. Kriner
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691171866
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
Although congressional investigations have provided some of the most dramatic moments in American political history, they have often been dismissed as mere political theater. But these investigations are far more than grandstanding. Investigating the President shows that congressional investigations are a powerful tool for members of Congress to counter presidential aggrandizement. By shining a light on alleged executive wrongdoing, investigations can exert significant pressure on the president and materially affect policy outcomes. Douglas Kriner and Eric Schickler construct the most comprehensive overview of congressional investigative oversight to date, analyzing nearly thirteen thousand days of hearings, spanning more than a century, from 1898 through 2014. The authors examine the forces driving investigative power over time and across chambers, identify how hearings might influence the president's strategic calculations through the erosion of the president’s public approval rating, and uncover the pathways through which investigations have shaped public policy. Put simply, by bringing significant political pressure to bear on the president, investigations often afford Congress a blunt, but effective check on presidential power—without the need to worry about veto threats or other hurdles such as Senate filibusters. In an era of intense partisan polarization and institutional dysfunction, Investigating the President delves into the dynamics of congressional investigations and how Congress leverages this tool to counterbalance presidential power.
Author: Michael Brenes
Publisher: Culture and Politics in the Company
ISBN: 9781625345219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
How did the global Cold War influence American politics at home? For Might and Right traces the story of how Cold War defense spending remade participatory politics, producing a powerful and dynamic political coalition that reached across party lines. This "Cold War coalition" favored massive defense spending over social welfare programs, bringing together a diverse array of actors from across the nation, including defense workers, community boosters, military contractors, current and retired members of the armed services, activists, and politicians. Faced with neoliberal austerity and uncertainty surrounding America's foreign policy after the 1960s, increased military spending became a bipartisan solution to create jobs and stimulate economic growth, even in the absence of national security threats. Using a rich array of archival sources, Michael Brenes draws important connections between economic inequality and American militarism that enhance our understanding of the Cold War's continued impact on American democracy and the resilience of the military-industrial complex, up to the age of Donald Trump.
Author: Bonnie Honig
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400824818
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
What should we do about foreigners? Should we try to make them more like us or keep them at bay to protect our democracy, our culture, our well-being? This dilemma underlies age-old debates about immigration, citizenship, and national identity that are strikingly relevant today. In Democracy and the Foreigner, Bonnie Honig reverses the question: What problems might foreigners solve for us? Hers is not a conventional approach. Instead of lauding the achievements of individual foreigners, she probes a much larger issue--the symbolic politics of foreignness. In doing so she shows not only how our debates over foreignness help shore up our national or democratic identities, but how anxieties endemic to liberal democracy themselves animate ambivalence toward foreignness. Central to Honig's arguments are stories featuring ''foreign-founders,'' in which the origins or revitalization of a people depend upon a foreigner's energy, virtue, insight, or law. From such popular movies as The Wizard of Oz, Shane, and Strictly Ballroom to the biblical stories of Moses and Ruth to the myth of an immigrant America, from Rousseau to Freud, foreignness is represented not just as a threat but as a supplement for communities periodically requiring renewal. Why? Why do people tell stories in which their societies are dependent on strangers? One of Honig's most surprising conclusions is that an appreciation of the role of foreigners in (re)founding peoples works neither solely as a cosmopolitan nor a nationalist resource. For example, in America, nationalists see one archetypal foreign-founder--the naturalized immigrant--as reconfirming the allure of deeply held American values, whereas to cosmopolitans this immigrant represents the deeply transnational character of American democracy. Scholars and students of political theory, and all those concerned with the dilemmas democracy faces in accommodating difference, will find this book rich with valuable and stimulating insights.
Author: Erik J. Engstrom
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108842801
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167
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Book Description
Physical features of ballots vary considerably across the US. This book shows how politicians use ballot design to influence voting.
Author: Adam Schiff
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0593231546
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 553
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Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The vital inside account of American democracy in its darkest hour, from the rise of autocracy unleashed by Trump to the January 6 insurrection, and a warning that those forces remain as potent as ever—from the congressman who led the first impeachment of Donald J. Trump “Engaging and informative . . . a manual for how to probe and question power, how to hold leaders accountable in a time of diminishing responsibility.”—The Washington Post With a new afterword by the author In the years leading up to the election of Donald Trump, Congressman Adam Schiff had already been sounding the alarm over the resurgence of autocracy around the world, and the threat this posed to the United States. But as he led the probe into Donald Trump’s Russia and Ukraine-related abuses of presidential power, Schiff came to the terrible conclusion that the principal threat to American democracy now came from within. In Midnight in Washington, Schiff argues that the Trump presidency has so weakened our institutions and compromised the Republican Party that the peril will last for years, requiring unprecedented vigilance against the growing and dangerous appeal of authoritarianism. The congressman chronicles step-by-step just how our democracy was put at such risk, and traces his own path to meeting the crisis—from serious prosecutor, to congressman with an expertise in national security and a reputation for bipartisanship, to liberal lightning rod, scourge of the right, and archenemy of a president. Schiff takes us inside his team of impeachment managers and their desperate defense of the Constitution amid the rise of a distinctly American brand of autocracy. Deepening our understanding of prominent public moments, Schiff reveals the private struggles, the internal conflicts, and the triumphs of courage that came with defending the republic against a lawless president—but also the slow surrender of people that he had worked with and admired to the dangerous immorality of a president engaged in an historic betrayal of his office. Schiff’s fight for democracy is one of the great dramas of our time, told by the man who became the president’s principal antagonist. It is a story that began with Trump but does not end with him, taking us through the disastrous culmination of the presidency and Schiff’s account of January 6, 2021, and how the antidemocratic forces Trump unleashed continue to define his party, making the future of democracy in America more uncertain than ever.
Author: Robert Wuthnow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691222649
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326
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Book Description
How the actions and advocacy of diverse religious communities in the United States have supported democracy’s development during the past century Does religion benefit democracy? Robert Wuthnow says yes. In Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy, Wuthnow makes his case by moving beyond the focus on unifying values or narratives about culture wars and elections. Rather, he demonstrates that the beneficial contributions of religion are best understood through the lens of religious diversity. The religious composition of the United States comprises many groups, organizations, and individuals that vigorously, and sometimes aggressively, contend for what they believe to be good and true. Unwelcome as this contention can be, it is rarely extremist, violent, or autocratic. Instead, it brings alternative and innovative perspectives to the table, forcing debates about what it means to be a democracy. Wuthnow shows how American religious diversity works by closely investigating religious advocacy spanning the past century: during the Great Depression, World War II, the civil rights movement, the debates about welfare reform, the recent struggles for immigrant rights and economic equality, and responses to the coronavirus pandemic. The engagement of religious groups in advocacy and counteradvocacy has sharpened arguments about authoritarianism, liberty of conscience, freedom of assembly, human dignity, citizens’ rights, equality, and public health. Wuthnow hones in on key principles of democratic governance and provides a hopeful yet realistic appraisal of what religion can and cannot achieve. At a time when many observers believe American democracy to be in dire need of revitalization, Why Religion Is Good for American Democracy illustrates how religious groups have contributed to this end and how they might continue to do so despite the many challenges faced by the nation.
